Author Information: Hans Bender

Hans Bender is probably Germany's best writer of short prose and the author of early novels. With Walter Höllerer, in 1954, he founded the premier German literary magazine, Akzente, which he continued to edit after Höllerer's resignation as coeditor, and which in 1979 he turned over to the editorship of author/publisher Michael Krüger. Bender is an anthologist of note and an admired critic. His early novel Wunschkost (The Mud Sled) is a fictional account of his own travails as a Russian prisoner of war in World War II. The story, "The Wolves Are Coming Back" is probably the most anthologized German short story of modern times, read by every German school child. Bender lives in Cologne.